Midas blenny

Care at a glance

Overview

The Midas blenny is a plankton-picking blenny for the middle of a saltwater reef tank, and it is easy to keep.

Caring for the Midas blenny

Give the Midas blenny 29 gal (110 L) or more, with plenty of live rock and cave-like holes to bolt into. Leave open swimming room above the rock as well, since it swims out in the water column and only retreats to a hole when startled.

Hold stable marine water at 72 to 79°F (22 to 26°C) and a pH of 8.1 to 8.4. Unlike grazing blennies, it needs a meaty diet. Feed mysis, enriched brine shrimp and finely chopped seafood alongside herbivore preparations.

Keep one per tank unless you have a bonded pair or add two small ones together, since midas blennies fight with their own kind. They are reef safe and leave corals, clams and invertebrates alone. A Midas blenny is mostly peaceful, but it has a habit of vexing small planktivores and nipping at firefish, gobies and dartfish. It is only rarely bred in captivity, and breeding it is hard.

Good to know

The Midas blenny is a combtooth blenny in the family Blenniidae, also sold as the golden, Persian or lyretail blenny. It is a deep golden yellow with blue-rimmed eyes and a forked, lyre-shaped tail. That tail sets it apart from the round-tailed grazing blennies and makes it look more like a basslet than a typical blenny. It can shift its color darker, toward brown or purple, depending on mood and surroundings. Most fish in the trade are wild-caught.

In the wild

Midas blennies live on Indo-Pacific reefs from the Red Sea and East Africa across to the central Pacific. In the wild, each one darts from its shelter into the current to pick plankton. Unlike the bottom-grazing blennies, it hangs in the water column above the reef, a lifestyle unusual for its genus.

Common questions

Related species

• 

  Bicolor blenny

  Ecsenius bicolor

  3.9 in (10 cm) · 29 gal (110 L)

  3.9 in (10 cm)29 gal (110 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Lined blenny

  Ecsenius lineatus

  3.5 in (9 cm) · 20 gal (75 L)

  3.5 in (9 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Red Sea mimic blenny

  Ecsenius gravieri

  3.1 in (8 cm) · 20 gal (75 L)

  3.1 in (8 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Tailspot blenny

  Ecsenius stigmatura

  2.4 in (6 cm) · 20 gal (75 L)

  2.4 in (6 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Pictus blenny

  Ecsenius pictus

  2 in (5 cm) · 20 gal (75 L)

  2 in (5 cm)20 gal (75 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  Canary fang blenny

  Meiacanthus oualanensis

  3.9 in (10 cm) · 40 gal (150 L)

  3.9 in (10 cm)40 gal (150 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)